1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for processing of waste materials and more particularly to a new method of processing waste materials for selective recycling, wherein the recyclable materials consist of all forms and grades of paper, plastic, glass, metal and wood. The method includes the employment of a closed-loop conveyor system having a primary sorting conveyor unit and a plurality of secondary sorting units operably interconnected to the primary sorting conveyor unit, and wherein a multiplicity of work stations are positioned within the closed-loop conveyor system for the removal of selective waste materials so as to be transported to respective designated storage areas or bins.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As is well known in the art, various problems and difficulties are encountered in providing suitable means of separating mounds of conglomerated waste material in a fast, simple, and accurate manner so as to establish a cost-effective method of retrieving recyclable materials.
There are at present several methods of collecting and separating waste materials. Most methods today include what is known as curbside collection. This requires homeowners to do the preliminary separating of glass items, cans, plastic, metal, and paper material. Participation time is required for sorting, setting out, and to retrieving containers. The homeowner is provided with a variety of storage containers. Generally, the largest container offered is often too small to accommodate the items. The containers are usually color coded, so as to store the selected waste materials in their properly designated container as required by the waste-disposal company.
However, this type of curbside collection recovers only a small percentage of the discarded materials. It is well understood in the industry that the prime rule of material recovery is separation of designated waste material. This means that a different waste material is not to be intermingled with another. That is, the more intermingled the waste material the more costly the handling. Thus, the higher the cost, the lower the monetary award becomes. Over a period of time many collection operations become economically unfeasible. Compartmentalized vehicles have been tried, but the cost is exorbitantly high. Thus, it can be understood that other more suitable means must be provided to solve the great number of existing problems.
As examples of some of the many other problems, different colored glass bottles must be further sorted into color bins, and various types of paper must be classified for separation. That is, newspapers, magazines, grocery bags, cartons, boxes, phone books, catalogs, junk mail, etc., should be separated. This is also true for all types of metals, plastics and other valuable materials, such as found in auto and appliance parts, batteries and oil. The recovery of these and many more waste products are not generally provided for because of the time, cost and the lack of know-how to make their separation feasible. At present large amounts of recyclable material still go to landfills, and are thus lost to the recycling process.
However, recently the trend is in the direction of providing materials-recovery facilities. These facilities are generally established in large plants that are designed to accommodate the processing of large amounts of commingled recyclables. Yet, these plants accomodate a limited number of material types and require relatively clean materials, such as glass bottles previously separated from the waste material.
Known recycling systems that are presently in use are designed having open-end sorting arrangements, such as employed by the Bollegraaf Sorting System. This system uses an in-floor conveyor that feeds waste material to an elevating conveyor that transports the material to an elevated picking conveyor. A multiplicity of sorting stations are located along the picking conveyor, whereby a limited number of waste material types are individually sorted by a worker and deposited in respective chutes so as to be transported to assigned storage bins, hoppers or compactors. Thus, all waste material together with the missed recyclable material that is left on the elevated conveyor is taken to the terminating end of the conveyor and deposited into a bin or transporter. All of this waste material is then sent to a waste dump which is generally referred to as a landfill.
As of now, there is no waste recycling facility or plant that provides a sorting system to solve many of the costly separation and recycling problems that have been herein mentioned. Recycling programs of significant size are presently implemented by operators who have developed their systems and equipment with the emphases on the quantity rather than the quality of the waste material. Until now, there has not been developed a technology to provide a high-yield, high-profit recovery system as will hereinafter be described and claimed.